Day 4

Today was the day I predicted my team would "hit the wall."  The past 3 days have been packed, and this was the day I circled as the day I would see some tired faces.  To be honest, I really didn't see that the whole trip.  Well, except when we had a break or in the van.  But when we were serving, everyone stepped to the plate and gave the energy needed the whole trip. 

Today was a day we needed that energy.

We woke up at the usual early morning and I had my usual english muffins and cereal.

Today we went to the LA Regional Food Bank.  The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank is a private, nonprofit, charitable organization that has been serving the disadvantaged of our community for 31 years. It is the heart of a charitable food distribution network that includes over 1,000 charities in Los Angeles County.

We walked into their board room and the host showed us a video to give us an idea of the people we would be serving since we wouldn't be in contact with the people the food is for.  It was a really good video because it showed all kinds of different people that are in need and with all different life situations.  It showed alot of the "working poor" that needed the food to stay afloat.  There was one guy who graduated with an electrical engineer who was discriminated against with his last job because of his job and health.  An electrical engineer? Needing to go to a food bank?  Made me think it could happen to any of us.  One bad break, one wrong decision, and I'd be fighting to stay afloat.   I think the video gave us a different perspective on the poor and who really makes up the poor.  Nearly 1 in 10 people in the county are at risk of hunger, with children and seniors being disproportionally affected.  Most people think of the homeless when hunger is mentioned, but the truth is that homeless population makes up only 4% of the people that the Foodbank provides food for in its hunger relief efforts. You can actually download the videohere. 

After the video, we went and got a tour of the facility and it was like walking into a Costco.   The place was seriously huge. 

It was kinda cool looking around at the boxes that were being distributed and finding "Midnight Mission," the place we were only a day ago.

After our tour, we put on the plastic aprons on and were given instructions on our duties for the next few hours. So basically its a huge assembly line.  Half the girls had the job of going through boxes of food donated and making sure it was ok to distribute.  So they had to look at the expiration dates and follow the chart of what foods were good/bad at certain dates, make sure seals weren't broken, etc.

Then the food that was "good" was put on this conveyer belt and sorted by the other half of the girls.  They sorted the food into different boxes based on type of food.

Jason helped sort the boxes for the girls and laid them out for them.

So when those boxes of sorted good food are done, they are sent on another conveyer belt to Tim and Mark, where they weigh the box and label it, then moved it to an organized location.

So what did I end up doing?  I supplied all of the boxes for Jason and broke down all of the unused boxes for recycling.  I'm glad they realized that I was the strongest guy on the team and gave me the toughest job.  It was so tiring, my apron was ripped to shreds by the end of the 3 hours.  I've never broken down so many boxes in my who life combined.  Sorry nobody took a picture of me and my apron, so you'll have to just imagine it.

Afterwards we went again to Las Familias.  I was thinking to myself -- "How am I going to have the energy to play with these kids after ripping boxes open for 3 hours??" 

Thank God for The Incredibles DVD being released.

After helping them finish their homework, we set up a television outside and had the kids all sit around and watch the movie.  Since I actually have never seen the movie, I was pretty excited myself.

If it wasn't for The Incredibles, I am not sure how I would've lasted.  Superb movie by the way.   So good in fact, the kids wanted to watch it for the next 2 days haha.  And we weren't gonna stop them. 

I could see the kids becoming attached to us as alot of them remembered our names and wanted to play the same games we played with them the day before.  One card game I played with some of them was Speed.  I forgot how to play the first time, so one of the kids beat me and started talking trash about it.  Me being pretty competitive, challenged him to another game.  Of course I won (how can I lose to a kid twice in a row?) and Mark came over and challenged the 2 kids.  So it was me and mark verses to 8 year olds.  We even played for stakes.  We bet them that if we won, they would have to do 20 pushups.  If they won, we would do 20 pushups.  Pretty soon people started gathering around to watch since this was a huge deal by now.  Basically its a thinking and quickness game, very similar to "Spit" for all you card game gurus out there.  Mark and I would not be denied.  When the final card was put down, we both jumped up and raised our hands in the air and pumped our fists as the kids yelled for mercy.  Then we saw the girls looking at us and shaking their heads saying -- "They're 8-years OLD!!" 

Its a guy thing.

At night we had the opportunity to go to this church called Victory Outreach.  They had services once a week for ex-gang members and so went to check it out.  I thought the church would look kinda run down, but it was really really nice.  The service is called G.A.N.G. --- God's Annointed New Generation. What a cool name.

The service was very much geared for the hispanic/african american community so it was really high-energy music.  They also incorporated alot of media which resembles alot of what Liquid does with the Digital Lounge.  I was really impressed at the stuff they were able to do.  The speaker was one of their members speaking for the first time.   He spoke about holiness and purity.  It was good to go to church that night because we weren't able to go to church on Sunday because of the plane trip.  I think it was cool to just get away a little bit from what we were doing and spend some time in worship.

Something that I learned about gangs is that if you leave a gang, they are going to beat you down.  But if you leave a gang and end up serving at a church and being really involved with it, they will respect that and is the only time they won't beat you down for leaving.  Gangs actually respect the church alot.  Pretty cool information to know I guess.

Day 3

The guys woke up bright an early at 6:40am and walked into the common room down the hall at 7:15am for breakfast.

Jason sleeps the most.  He is the first one asleep and the last one awake. 

Usually for breakfast, we have bagels or english muffins and/or a variety of cereal.  I'm a big cereal guy, I can pretty much eat that anytime of the day.  After breakfast, Anna usually sits everyone down and goes through the schedule of the day.  Anna and I are the only ones that know the schedule so its actually quite exciting for the others.  I didn't care if the team knew the schedule, but i think CSM is extra sensitive about it.  They think if people realize how muhc stuff we have to do, that people's attitudes will drop and there will be alot of complaining.  I didn't agree that would happen with my team, but I played along nonetheless.  An ongoing joke would be people on the team asking me what we would do next and I would just answer "maaaybe."  Knowledge is power haha.

So what was on tap for today?? The VA Hospital.  The VA specializes in taking care of war veterans and we'll be going there to volunteer for a variety of positions.

So first we had to get there.  Today, we experienced LA traffic.  I think we were an hour late to our scheduled arrival. 

Once we get there, this old guy splits us up one by one.  He puts Elaine and Ariel at the Coffee booth, Isabel as a greeter, Tim and Jason with the book cart to pass out books to patients, Mark with the magazine cart, Steph at the Information Booth, Karen to escort patients around, and Ruth to answer phone calls.  Out of that group, Mark probably had the most boring job because he went with this guy who wouldn't even let him push the cart.  Ruth had the hardest job because she actually had to THINK and answer phone calls.  Steph probably had the best job, she came back with candy and they gave her a CD wallet. Unbelievable.

So what did I do?  I was sent to the clothing distribution place in the basement.  It was actually somewhat a sad place to be.  Basically, when someone checks in as a patient to the hospital, they put their clothes on hold.  If that person dies, the family has 30 days to pick up his clothes, if not, it enters into this distribution center for war veterans.  The clothing distribution place also receives clothes from the salvation army and other clothing drive institutions.  So I walked in there and met up with 2 guys, Lorenzo and Isaac. Both were war vets, Isaac was Austrialian and been a soldier for 30 years and Lorenzo fought for about 7 years.  Lorenzo was really helpful and showed me around the place and what its like to be working in the hospital.  I just folded up their cabinet and sorted some clothes by using my Gap skills I got working in high school.  I helped some veterans pick out some clothes that would fit them and stuff.  When I finished folding, I sat down with them and read the LA Times and chatted about what it was like being a veteran.  Lorenzo was working at the hospital so he could start a new life and earn some credit for his mortgage.  Isaac talked about how tough it was to integrate back into the society, especially when many sacrificed education so they could fight.  Lorenzo had to get a smoke break, so I went outside with him and talked with him some more.  We would just look around and see all these people coming into the hospital with all kinds of problems.  He pointed up at the building and talked about how that area is where many vets go for psychiatric treatment because of the war.  "Things change when you kill someone, believe me", he said to me.  We looked at some more people rolling in on wheelchairs.  Lorenzo told me that could be him too in a few years.  He said some countries used these radiation bombs which affects soldiers later on in life and he might get affected sometime. 

We walked back into the hospital and I couldn't stop thinking about whether this whole system was fair.

On the way back I took a picture of Isabel and Freddy greeting everyone. 

Here is a picture of me and Lorenzo.  I had to sneak in the Hook 'Em Horns sign in the picture.

After we said our goodbyes, we went outside to have lunch.  We made all of the lunched in the morning before we left.  I made 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Fritos and Oreos.  We had some trading going on during lunch, just like the good old days of middle school.

After lunch we had devotions. Usually for devotions, I had a passage in the Bible I picked out beforehand that I had them read and then spend time praying/journaling the rest of the time.  I did NOT tell them to sleep (Jason) haha.

We drove back to CSM and took a short break. 

Then it was back to Las Familias del Pueblo.

Again, once we walked it, we were all surrounded by kids.  They just grab your hand tell you to do stuff with them.  We are usually there for 2 and a half hours, so there is alot of time to do alot of different things.  Usually in the first half of the time, we help them with their homework.  Their parents usually work many hours because most of them work in sweatshops so the kids can't get help from them.  Also, many of the parents don't speak English or have the same kind of education as many of our parents received. 

It was fun teaching kids how to multiply and subtract, but most of the time I helped kids with English homework.  If most of you know me, English isn't exactly my favorite subject.  So when kids started asking me for help, half the time I was trying to figure it out myself haha.  I actually wasn't sure how to explain what an "adverb" was until I looked at some examples.  Just like with all kids, we had to exhibit patience with them as alot of them got distracted really easily. 

After they were done with homework, most of the time we would play outside in the playground.  Most of the time they would want to play freeze tag or they just want to jump on you.  Since I was one of the oldest, I let the younger guys like Mark and Jason run around with all the kids as I would try to stick with the kids that didn't want to run around.  Most kids were just captivated with my digital camera and wanted me to take pics of them.

More on the kids in some upcoming posts!

After Las Familias, we headed back for CSM and had a break until we had a team night in a school owned by World Impact.  Basically we met up with the two other groups that were at CSM the same week as us.  Ironically, both groups were from Texas.  Actually, they were both from Lubbock, TX, home of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. 

We ate dinner and mingled and then had "get to know you" game.  I haven't played one of those in years.  So almost all of the people from Lubbock are farmers or grew up on a farm.  I met one guy who never been to a big city other than Dallas.  Ouch.  So he was telling me how it was such a culture shock for them and I was like "yeah that's an understatement."

After getting to know each other, Mark led worship for us and then the CSM regional director talked to us for a bit.

Then it was off to sleep.

Pre-Trip

How did I get into this?

    I've been in charge of the Liquid Lounges (ministry teams) for a couple years now and one of the teams that I oversee is the Globalization Lounge.  The beginning of the year, Joy Hsu (Globalization Lounge leader) and I talked about possible trips that Liquid could go on for months.  We decided on going on two summer trips out of the country and one inner city trip during spring break.  Joy needed some help finding some contacts for the inner city trip, so I volunteered to check things out for her.  I originally wanted to go to Boston because of a number of selfish reasons haha.  I contacted a few of the agencies in Boston and The Boston Project Ministries seemed like a good fit. I also looked around at a number of other agencies not in Boston from searching around theUrbana website.  One of those agencies was Center for Student Missions. 

    The more I researched, the more I felt like going on this trip.  I had some experience with the inner city being from Boston and doing some ministry stuff up there.  As I read more and more about each agency and what their passion was,  I became more intrigued by the idea of taking my last spring break and going on missions.  I wanted to go on missions sometime this year, I just didn't know what trip to go on or where to go.  Since I plan on being a teacher in the city, I thought more exposure to the inner city would be a good experience for me. 

    Once I decided on going on the trip, my desire for Liquid going to Boston decreased for selfish reasons.  Would things be too comfortable for me in Boston since I knew the area?    Would I get distracted by the fact that my friends and family were minutes away?  Yeah, that probably would have happened.  So after asking for some advice, Boston was crossed off.

    I decided on CSM because they are in multiple cities and so I figured that they must be doing something right.  I had my choice of cities - Houston, LA, Detroit, Chicago, Nashville, D.C. and more.  I called them up and decided on LA, Chicago, and D.C. as my top 3 choices.  I didn't want Houston for the same reasons as Boston.  As it turned out, LA was the only city of my top 3 that were available on our spring break. 

    Califorina here we come.

Being the Leader

    Once I decided to go on the trip, I was pretty much awarded the leadership position immediately.  Being on staff with Liquid, I guess I didn't really have a choice, although I never actually said no.  Since joining Liquid, I've developed my gifts as a leader by learning how to administrate, delegate, and motivate. 

    Most time I feel incompetent because I don't see myself as an expert at any one thing.  This opportunity was no different.  One of the things that I've learned from serving with Liquid, however, was don't be afraid to fail. 

    Part of being the leader was to be able to recruit enough people to go.  I needed a min of 7 people to go on the trip according to CSM.  I was actually worried that I wouldn't get enough.  I promoted the trip for a few weeks and I had alot of "maybes" and not enough confirmed. With almost 1 month left, I had only 2 confirmed.  I was getting worried and prayed that I could get 4 more people to agree to go.  Then with almost 3 weeks remaining, random people  started contacting me about the trip.  Random in a sense that I had no idea they were even interested.  I had to make a decision whether or not to stick with the trip or nix it because of lack of commitment.  I talked it over with Joy and Brian and decided to just go with it.

    I hate making deadlines for people when they are deciding about missions trips.  I tried to hold out as long as possible.  Amazingly, 7 people agreed to go on the trip, 3 more on the last possible days.  God is good.

    We have a good group of 3 5th year seniors, 3 seniors, 2 juniors, and 2 sophomores.  A couple people I knew well, and most of the others I never had a chance to serve with, but heard good things about them.  I felt really blessed to have a team like the one I had.

Day 1

I had to split the group up because I wasn't able to get all 10 people on one flight to LA from Houston.  So Tim and I went on the morning flight and the rest of the group went on the afternoon flight.  Tim and I had to get the rental car anyway, so it kind of worked out.

The flight was awesome. Since I've never been on a flight outside of the country, I've never had my own television.  Well, I finally got my chance on this flight. 

Yes, they even had video games we could play.  What a great way to start the trip hahaha.  We also had a choice of movies to watch.  I decided to watch Finding Neverland.  It was a good movie until I passed out in the middle of it.

We finally landed in LA and Tim called up the rental car company.  We thought it was AAA, but instead of some small bus picking us up, this minivan pulled up.  Apparently, we rented from AA'A, not AAA haha.  What exactly does the 'A in AA'A mean?? 

So this guy named Sam drives us from the airport to their office.  I actually took this picture just in case we got kidnapped or something.(I'm the leader of the trip because I can think ahead like this)

  Meanwhile, I'm in the backseat ready to jump out of the car if something weird happens.  Everything goes okay with the rental paperwork and we were off with our new 15 person van.  We decided to name it, the "Millennium Falcon" after Star Wars.  We have to kill 3 hours so we decide to go to In and Out Burger and drove to the mall.  Then we got tired and went drove to an Office Depot parking lot and took a nap. 

    We finally got the call from the others that had arrived and went to pick them up.  You can catch their video by downloading it here  (you can save target as).

    We had about 3 hours until we had to "report" to CSM headquarters. We decided to head to the beach since most people haven't seen the ocean in a while (for some, their whole life).

So there is the team.  Bottom from Left to Right - Elaine, Isabel, Ariel. Ruth, Karen, Stephanie.  Top from Left to Right - Me (with my eyes closed haha), Jason, Tim, and Mark.

We decide to head over to the CSM Headquarters a little early to check in.  I was also able to meet our host staff worker, Anna, for the first time.  She was from the Seattle area and was actually only a couple months older than me.  I prayed alot about  the staff worker we would have because that person would be with us for pretty much the whole trip.  The moment we met up, I knew things would work out because she was laid back and liked to have fun.  After a couple weeks with the team, we needed someone that could laugh and be okay with it.

I had a meeting with her and we talked about all the logistics and how we would communicate with each other.  Thats when I knew that I was actually leading a team and this was actually happening.

The girls had their own 2 - room apartment and the guys had our own 2 - room apartment.  At first we wondered why they gave the girls the room closest to the door, as it would seem that it would be the most dangerous.  Then we walked into the room and once we sniffed the moldy smell, we knew why we had this room and not the girls haha.  The room was decent, just smelled kinda bad.  The sink had a leak and some of the water dripped on the floor.  The kitchen didnt really work and there was no heat or anything.  But other than that, it wasn't that bad.

After eating Salvarorian food for dinner and some obstacles using the bathroom there (the bathroom is one of the themes of our group this trip), we headed off to our prayer tour of the city.

The prayer tour set the tone for the rest of the days in LA and was probably the most important part.  We drove around for over 2 hours with the windows down and with limited talking.  At each community, Anna would give us the background and history of each part.  We stopped at about 5 locations and prayed over the community.

Some big facts about LA:

Q. How many people are homeless in Los Angeles? A. Up to 253,918 men, women and children are homeless over the course of a year and up to 82,096 people are homeless each night in Los Angeles County. Source: Institute for the study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center

Q. Who are the homeless in Los Angeles? A. Categorically the homeless look like this: 41% are families with children 37% are single men 16% are single women 5% are unaccompanied youth Source: U.S. Conference of Mayors. A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities.

Here is what I blogged on the Liquid website...

We had to get up at 7:15AM for the first time in a while.  We all piled into the van at 7:30 and headed on our way to the shopping district.  After we parked the car in the parking lot, Anna gave us some instructions.  We split the group in half and each halve was given 3 bucks a person plus an extra 3 dollars for a stranger.

So our mission was to go out and find someone homeless to eat with and eat with him/her.  Sounded pretty easy to me when I first thought about it.  I mean, all we needed to do was find someone and BAM we go eat together and chat for a bit.  Should be pretty simple.  Haha was I wrong.

After getting rejected 4 times by the homeless, I was wondering to myself why it was so hard to get someone to eat with us.  I can see how it can be intimidating, as some people would look over at the rest of the group and then decline the invitation.  I am sure many of them didn't want to become some kind of project for people.  Some already had breakfast early in the morning at some soup kitchen.  Some of them felt ashamed and didn't like to take money from people.  "I just don't like taking money from people", said one homeless guy.  I can't really blame them.

I looked at my watch and we only had 35 minutes left.  I couldn't believe how difficult it was to find someone.  Finally, as we walked down the street, we saw a guy asking for change outside of Burger King.  I approached him and asked if he would mind if we bought him breakfast. He immediately smiled and said "YEAH."  We bought Robert one of those extra value breakfast meals and prayed with him before we ate.  We just ate with him and talked to him about where he came from and what he used to do.  He was actually a lip-singer and toured with some group.  Then we chatted about random stuff such as the Atlanta trial where the defendant shot the judge.  I was pretty surprised he knew about the current events.  It was pretty much a normal conversation and why shouldn't it have been?  I am sure he hasn't had a normal conversation in a while and we didn't want to blast him with the 4 spiritual laws or anything like that. 

He said he had to go, so he left and we finished up eating and left to go back to the parking lot.  After debriefing and sharing with each other what had happened, we walked into Skid Row.  You can pretty much tell you are in Skid Row from the smell of urine to the amount of homeless you see on the streets. There are no businesses around either because there aren't that many people with money walking around.  We ended up at Midnight Mission.

The Midnight Mission is one of the oldest continuously operating human services organizations in the Los Angeles region.   We got a tour of the place and it was just amazing.  This guy Alvin welcomed us and went on the tour with us. He shared his testimony about how was on drugs and alcohol and now is trying to get his life back in order.  He is an example of the vision of Midnight Mission.  They don't want to be just a place where homeless get food and shelter.  They want to take the homeless off the streets.  They do this by getting people into their program.  When the homeless get into their program, they attempt to rehab them from drugs and alcohol, get them a job in the mission, take classes so they can pass the GED, etc.   The tour guide talked about how if someone gave a homeless person a million dollars, he'd prob be back on the streets in the next year.  Why?  The addiction to alcohol and drugs is just too great, people underestimate it.  Most people think that if we give homeless enough money, they'll be fine.  Doesn't happen that way most of the time.

The way they run the place is really encouraging.  They are "in the business of homelessness."  They run the place like a business in terms of its leadership structure and how efficient they are in taking care of them.  I've never seen a mission like this that pretty much though of everything when it comes to the homeless.  I love how this place has a vision and are carrying it out.

After the tour, we got ready to serve lunch at their cafeteria.  We all stood around and put our apron and hats on.  Then the soup nazi came out.  Anna warned us about this guy.  He is the head chef and runs the place like the military.  Pretty soon he started picking people to serve food.  I was the first choice, then Anna, then Elaine, then Mark.  Isabel started walking to our side before he pointed at her and told her to stay where she was.  We realized he was picking by height because you have to be tall enough to move the trays. With that in mind, Tim tries to stand up as tall as possible to get picked.  Stephanie is actually taller than him, but since Tim stood up straight and she was slouching because she didnt know what was going on, Tim was picked.  This turned out to be a huge mistake for Tim. 

As we stood behind the serving area, we all had a job of putting the food on the tray.  Apparently, the soup nazi wants to make sure everything is perfect. So we had a few trial runs. Elaine was in charge of the spaghetti and the first time she put it on, he yelled at her and told her it was too much.  Then we went again and he said it was too little.  Ouch.  I had an easy job of putting 2 Krispy Kreme donuts on the tray.  Tim was in charge of the bread, Anna had the celery snack (which i have never seen before in my life), and Mark had salad.  After we were done with our trial runs. Tim walks outside the serving area and looks at the tray to analyze which side the tray should be on and where to put the bread.  Anna and I looked at each other and whisper "Don't do it Tim, don't do it...."  The soup nazi gets pissed at him and tells him to get back in the serving area. He starts yelling at him thinking he was trying to change the system.  Anna and I are giggling and start pointing at Tim as he gets chewed out hahah.  Sorry Tim.  You just got soup nazied.

Finally, it was time to serve.  Just as I said before, this place is run like a tight ship.  I think in 1 hour, we served over 300 people.  I've never moved that fast serving food before in my life.  My arm was so sore, but i had to suck it up or the soup nazi guy was gonna chew me out. 

The others that didn't serve ended up busing tables or opened cans of tuna in the back.  After we were done, we all got together with the other staff and ate lunch.

We headed off back to CSM for a quick nap and then it was off to Las Familias del Pueblo.

Las Familias is the only site we went to every single day.  Its an afterschool daycare program which is totally free.  Most of the kids have parents that work in sweatshops and aren't home to take care of them.  The ages range from kindergarten to middle school.  Once we walked in, we were swarmed by the kids and they started asking us to read or play with them.  I'll post about this experience more in the next few posts.

After 2 and a half hours of kids, we headed back to CSM for another break until dinner.  The dinner menu today was Ethiopian.  Never had it before in my life.  When we got there, we sat around these weird looking tables.  I don't even want to call them tables, but I don't know what else to call them.  Basically they give you this tray filled with stuff on it.  Then they give you a bunch of spongy looking tortilla type things (i forgot what everything is called).  So you tear off a bit of the spongy stuff and scoop up the other stuff with your hand holding the stuff and make stuff.  Well, my table didn't know how to do this so we made up our own way.  Elaine starts making this huge burrito and start eating it.  The waitress starts laughing and walks over and has to tell her how to do it.  Nice one Elaine.  Then she somehow breaks her chair later in the dinner.  Ouch.